mimsy and outgrabe

The spring semester and the 2016-2017 academic year has ended. In some ways, I'm right where I've always been at this time of year -- dehydrated and riding down a steep wave of elevated cortisone. In other ways, I'm much different . . . or at least, I have the prospect of being much different before me.  My promotion to full professor from associate professor means I don't have to participate quite so avidly anymore in the various aspects of college service that I found too taxing, or ill-fitting, or uninspiring. It means that I can begin to shape my career at the college according to my own wishes, not the administration's, and as a result my writing career will begin to change shape, too. At least, that's my hope.  I'm looking forward to having more control over how I spend my time at my job; perhaps, you know, being a better teacher. It's exhausting and depressing to reach the end of a semester and feel as though you let down -- whether th...

Sunrise as viewed from my deck. Not bad! I took a break from the blog when I traveled with the kiddies down to Virginia at the end of June, and then never quite returned to it after we came back. Part of this is because I've been busy with making/going to doctor's appointments that SHOULD have taken place during the school year, chipping away at the clutter in my house and attempting to right all the wrongs in my housekeeping habits, and sometimes actually working on those writing projects I mentioned a month ago.  But also: I just haven't had as much to say. I'm feeling a little quieter. I kinda want to curl up and disappear from the world. And by world I really mean people. I'm rethinking/revising not only the way I write but the way I approach the different facets of my life all the time, and sometimes I feel overwhelmed, as if talking about those changes will put them all in jeopardy. It's a crazy-person kind of paranoia, really. I mean, somet...

My summer writing group met this week. Three out of four of us met, at least, and it was a good beginning. We did chit chat for a few minutes too long at the beginning (which is against the rules), but then we each buried ourselves in our writing in one of the small meeting rooms in the library. We worked at a table in silence for nearly three hours. It was lovely. It took me a while to begin, though. I have, as I've mentioned before, several writing projects floating around in my head, but I thought it was probably best to keep it simple and just begin writing a poem. I've been reading poems and reading about the craft of poetry almost every day since school let out, but I haven't written a poem for months. So it seemed like a good beginning point, for both my summer writing endeavors AND my participation in the group. It was strange, though, writing in the presence of other people . . . and other people I know at that. I'm used to writing in the presence o...

It's been a week of recovery! And Plan-Making Lite, meaning that I'm beginning to think of the best way to tackle all of the things I'd like to do with these next few teaching-free months. My summer class was under-enrolled and didn't run, which is probably more good fortune for me than bad: I'll have less money, but now I can use the next month (the one where my children are still in school) to do prep for the fall at a leisurely pace, and to work on the things that I'm feeling starved for, like reading and writing. And exercise -- even the simplest kind, such as walking through my neighborhood or stretching. And sleep. Lots of sleep. I've begun reading this week, as a kind of segue between Disaster Semester and Disaster Semester Prevention Planning, Lynda Barry's Syllabus . It's really marvelous. Lynda Barry is one of my new favorites. I discovered her via my colleague D.W., who studied with her at University of Wisconsin-Madison (and is actu...